An O.A.P.'s view of everything.

Monthly Archives: March 2010

Yes, it arrived today by post. EN for Business is a glossy (very glossy!) magazine for ‘entrepreneurs’. I got one in February too and, to do my bit for these folks, I gave ’em a link. (…mmm…wonder if they noticed? Doubt it.)
Anyway the mag is fine – if you like that sort of thing. Generally in mags like this the idea is to chuck say £50,000…no, let’s get real, say £500,000 at some business idea, and make a wedge in return. This is fine. The problem is – there aren’t too many ordinary folk on the dole able to punt that kind of dosh! Not without the word ‘BORROW’ entering the equation! And we all know what doing that entails lately!

So, me being a simple old lag at the game, prefer to call this kind of business-person an ‘investor’ rather than an entrepreneur. An investor simply invests a bit of his capital to get a return. Great. No problems there.

But an entrepreneur…ahhhh, a slightly different breed. One much rarer. For the true entrepreneur starts with a capital sum of…
£0 and takes it from there! No capital. No borrowing.

Now, an article in ANY magazine showing how to SURVIVE (let alone make say £5million?) from that stand-point, would be greatly illuminating – not just for the already-heeled investors – but for a whole army of those wishing dearly to become one – I’d say about 75% of the unemployed register! Conservatively! (Possibly, depending on who’s figures you believe, that could be about 7,500,000 people.)

I have read, somewhere, that, apparently, even the blogged words of true entrepreneurs are valued more than gold itself…as they invariably encapsulate the true concept of entrepreneurialism – which is of course ‘Marketing’ – or, more understandably – the creation of a ‘market’ where none before existed.

Thus, as an entrepreneur I must, when envisaging a particular venture therefore, be able to test my idea(s) for validity. So I simply ask myself:

1) Q: Will my ‘product’ (in this case an ‘article’ on nil-start money-making) create for itself a reasonable ‘market’?

1) A: Yes, the market is already there but unsatisfied! (Well, no one is signing-off in droves are they!!)

2) Q: What is the product cost?

2) A: To me…bog all. (Total NIL start!)

3) Q: What is the potential return?

3) A: Top-line 7,500,000 additional copies of EN for Business sold in one month @ £3.50 per copy = £26,250,000.00p. (Advert revenue from 7,500,000, or far more, website ‘hits’ would cover pipe-fodder costs!)

The ‘article’ could be serialized over say ten (10) magazine copies, that’s a potential £262,500,000.00p in INCREASED sales (not total sales)

After copy ONE the ‘unemployed’ would be loaded (thus bailing-out GB ‘Retail’) and could afford it! Thus too paying tax (rather than taking it!). The p-s deficit at last being nibbled at!

There is too the minor consideration of my fee for the said article.
Well, I could do SECOND Serial Rights for…ooooh,….£5,000,000…just, you understand, so that I can write this at it’s end…

Q.E.D.

**Often, but not always, entrepreneurial effort benefits huge numbers of people. The effort of investors is of great benefit but on a more ‘personal’ level.**

There they stand – the worlds greatest monument to the human ego. They are quite brilliant none-the-less, and I have spent many, many hours reading about, pondering about and trying to figure out – just what they were for.
Tombs? Well, no, it really doesn’t look like it. When built they didn’t stand alone, as they are now, they were part of what appear to be ‘temple’ or ‘civic’ complexes; where the elite hung-out.
Later, Egytian temples and civic buildings were far more like the ones we would probably build – the problem with pyramids, of solid stone blocks as these, is: we couldn’t really build one today. No one knows how. Indeed building certain massive temples, adding to them by successive Pharoahs, actually bankrupted Egypt more than once in it’s ancient history. Such is ego. A driving-force to be wary of.
Not that ego plays a part today.
Oh no.
The really big pyramid is awesome. It has features the others just try to emmulate – but usually fail. Yet archaeologists tell us it wasn’t the first built.
Of course later the Egyptian ‘priesthood’ etc. became a major sector, with committee’s and inspectorates that began to oversee the massive temple construction sites – more chiefs than indians became the byword.
We, of course, wouldn’t do that now.
In those days a 3,000,000,000 loaf committee-costing for a temple that actually cost 9,325,000,000 loaves was just one of the factors that bust Egypt. Despite (or was it because of?) they too having Public Accounts Committee’s and Temple Delivery Committee’s. With some other committee deciding that the temple complex would raise some 600,000,000 loaves from sales revenues.
We, of course, simply wouldn’t do that now.

Apparently, last night, upon p-s costly stage, the three ‘pretenders’ desperate to manage p-s debts, had a nice old chin-wag before their deciding populace.
Debate it cannot be as all three depend, for bread and water, on ever-rising levels of milking the said populace, with variations only in the detail.
I missed the event…was doing something not readily understood or preached by said pretenders.
I was working for non-immediate, yet possibly eventual…profit.

Or nearly years end. And, at this time of year, as all entre’s, I’m deep into writing this years main piece of total friggin’ fiction: the years ‘accounts’! Oh! sheets of paper everywhere (No, it’s all done on a PC spreadsheet – and it’s factually spot on!) and a barrage of calculations for tax demands…gawd! this lot’ll take an AGE to sort! (No. How long does it take to write four noughts?)
Anyway, at times like this, when I’m suddenly starving hungry and get up at an ungodly 5.30 a.m. to get food, often thoughts turn to….
Egypt.

Egypt yes. I sit here eating boiled eggs and toast; drinking coffee and suddenly I’m there…me donkey-pass shoved carefully into me loincloth, as I stroll the noisy, dusty, rubble-strewn walkways between dirty great slabs of rock.
They too had MASSIVE unemployment problems – but their Pharoah’s solved them.
The word ‘Pharoah’, by the way, wasn’t actually written like that; ancient Egyptians did not bother with vowels (labour-saving guys!!); archaeologists just found ancient texts with a few consonants on them – like the letters Carol Vorderman used to put up on Countdown. In Egypt the consonants they found were: R….S.. and an OWL pictogram – which would be pronounced, something like…aRSowl…So the archaeologists said, “Ah! That’s the term for a ruler…and in our language it would be P…R…H…or we could say…’Pharoah’ “.

The Egyptian Pharoah’s solved their massive unemployment problems with….pyramids. The bigger the pyramid – the more unemployment a particular ars…er, Pharoah had, and, at the same time; the bigger the pyramid he could build! So, as today, a few MILLION folk sat about
doing sod all was in a way good news for Pharoahs as labour was at rock-bottom prices! Literally! So, in exchange for a corn-loaf the unemployed would make mud-bricks, (same mould as the corn-loaves, labour-saving again!) which were used to build ramps and thingies so that masons could haul big stones up and down pyramids.
(They used the same mould until Aketataf Dadope (thick as two yanks) built a bread ramp by mistake – but, even stale, it couldn’t take the weight of three hundred five-ton slabs…and, as the slabs slid down the bread ramp at Mach 4 the resulting friction was, archaeologists agree, illuminating for the Egyptian inventors, so far unsuccessfully trying to invent toast.)

Strangely the hieroglyph for ‘Pyramid’ seems to have been five interlocked rings…but, of course, the scribes could have just been playing sarcastic games.

Archaeologists suss all this out but ever fail imo, to say why such buildings were always erected near a river. Perhaps it was just that Egyptian roads were, due to sledge traffic (loadsa snow there too!) full of pot-holes and nigh on UNUSABLE! So the workforce either stayed at home playing with their abacaii, or roughed-it and travelled by public reed-boat to work.

Mmmm…conditions must have been tough in those times eh? The pyramids are massive. Mind you, have you seen the size of a Pharoah?
Here’s one they dug up:
Now don’t start laughing about all this. All it takes is for them to find a pyramid building-block with A, B, C, on it’s sides and it solves everything!
🙂

Geely, the Chinese car-maker, are to buy Volvo apparently, from Fords. The price? $1,800,000,000 or £1,200,000,000. (Isn’t it strange how the difference between $ and £ is now almost gone!? – at one time ‘a dollar’ in GB meant five bob (five shillings) or 25 new pence nowadays – which meant four dollars to a pound!)
Ford will lose about £5,000,000,000 on buying & selling Volvo. I used to like Volvo’s – I’ve had several. But, to be honest, who needs one? To be even more honest…who really NEEDS any damned car?
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Keep an eye on Road Haulage. Fuel prices are again on the minds of the 1,000,000 folk currently employed in Road Haulage industry. British diesel is, before duty (tax), the cheapest, yet the most expensive after. Hauliers are getting shirty again…and who can blame them?
No lorries = No food. Stark eh?
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I read somewhere that Boots are one of the ‘elite’ profit makers, pulling, it seems, £1,000,000,000 or more in a single trading year. Sadly debts there are about £9,000,000,000.
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So far this trading year (tax year that is 🙁 ) BA have lost £340,000,000 or more. By tax-years end that may be closer to £500,000,000. (Tax rebate from last years £70,000,000 profit? mmm…maybe; anyway, back to this years results.) But, rumour, in the deep echelons of the P-S, pervades, that a tiny, sole-trading business, with NO bail-out cash, NO overdraft facility, not even a bloody bank-account come to that! No employees, no premises, definitely NO BONUS for the CEO!!! – NOTHING in fact;
made more £ than British Airways during this tax-year.
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I had a slight giggle earlier when delving James Martin’s Motoring blog at the Mail. Normally it’s the domain of petrol-heads dependent on anything ‘F1’ that’s allowed on a normal road. Today I note the featured vehicle is a Ford Transit van! A sign of the times perhaps, but at least it’s called a ‘SportVan’… 🙂 …and, you could ship a shedload of erm…pies?… in one o’ them James! Dive in chuck, stuff the ego eh?

There have been some great numbers about this week – mainly, of course, because of the p-s budget – sadly all of the numbers have been NEGATIVES…i.e. debts!
They don’t have ‘a budget’ in the P-S – don’t need one; get it wrong there boyo and it’s bye-bye time and orf you go to the p-s dole-queue!
But, it’s weekend so me having a break…oh well done British cyclists again – they got Silver in Team Pursuit – very well done Australia! They won it! (I could have beat the lot of ’em on me old Raleigh! I wish!!!)
Here’s a vid, bit noisy this one, for Bev & Robyn in S.A.

Sorry but, gotta laugh haven’t you? Just had a quick peep at beeb site and within minutes was falling off me chair!
Apparently 95, yes, that’s ninety-five, erm…Employment Relations Experts (yes, I typed that correctly!) have accused BA’s boss – Mr. Walsh – of ‘union-busting’. The ‘experts’ are from various universities ( I read) including Oxford.

Ahhhh! The p-s is on form this morning!!!

🙂 🙂

And The National (that’s British folks!) Lottery is now owned by Canada! Well, a Canadian investment firm – well, a Canadian Pension Fund…well the pension fund for Canadian teachers…in other words…yep…p-s!!!
Camelot can’t be arsed any longer and pulled £389,000,000 for the Lottery – well, the lottery itself is one thing…the vital bit is the government licence to actually run it, and that has still got quite a few years to run…
🙂

More importantly: Well done Sir Chris Hoy on winning Britain’s first World Track Cycling Championship GOLD at Denmark.
That type of bike still looks iffy to me!

Nice one!
🙂

Mmmm…later in the year, June I think, The Times and The Sunday Times are going to charge folk for access to their websites. £1 per day or £2 for a week’s subscription.
Interesting that one. Novel. Of course I couldn’t do that as no one actually comes here – except S.Pam, whoever that is.
Mind you…this is the P-S…and here there is no such a thing as ‘can’t’! I’ll kick-off @ £3 per week!
Such cheapskates at The Times!

🙂

GAWD! I thought I was down the local chippy when I read,”…europe bails-out Greece…”
My mistake!

A great number in the Mail today! Eleven noughts!!! Oh! RAPTURE! Here it is:
£1,200,000,000,000 !!!??? If I put the ‘pence’ noughts on there would be thirteen noughts!!

And that is just our latest public sector pension commitment figure. It’s an estimate yes, but a very realistic one apparently.

Ah well. Back to work.

🙂 🙂

Yesterday, determined to get onto the public-sector payroll, I ventured jobcentreplus – the online jobbo – and delved the local jobs. There were two or three jobs for binmen at Bury and at Harper Fold – which is only a short bike-ride away!
Dreams of imminent wealth and Gold-Plated Pension evaporated however as ALL of these job listings stated ( and I quote verbatim): “Do not apply unless you have experience of emptying bins.”